EP 67 - California Just Picked Rivian Over Tesla

right let's go ahead and get right into it starting with this fatal crash this is the first fatal crash with the tesla semi

yeah this happened on june 28th just about 40 miles east of reno nevada just outside of the gigafactory there in nevada and this accident happening in a stretch that is very well known for accidents when it comes to just cars in general so this wasn't unusual in that sense but what was unusual as you said the first of its kind the tesla semi was involved in this crash What happened apparently was the semi struck a vehicle, two vehicles that were parked at a traffic light.

So it approached from behind, struck them both.

Unfortunately, two fatalities in those smaller vehicles down lower occurred and a third injury that required a person to be airlifted to hospital as well.

And investigations are underway right now.

But so many questions from people of how did this happen to the most advanced semi truck in the world, essentially?

I mean, first thing, because it is Tesla, of course, is going to make all the major news outlets.

People are going to be talking about it.

And I think the big question, too, is was it in full self-driving? What was it doing? How did this possibly happen? You said that the driver fell asleep.

Initially, so this is what these statements at the scene suggested is that the driver of the semi had fallen asleep.

So I don't know if that came from the driver himself or people on site there.

But that is exactly the statement that was given to the authorities, the Nevada State Patrol, which, by the way, they shut down the highway.

I think it's Interstate 50 on both directions there for a few hours.

As a result of this, they seized the Tesla semi for investigation as well.

But what we do know for a fact is that the Tesla Semi right now does not have full self-driving active for customer facing vehicles.

Do we know if this is a customer facing Semi?

That's a great question.

Based on the images, what we know right now, there's no marking to indicate as such.

A lot of times you'll get FedEx or Pepsi or UPS kind of marking on there.

I don't believe I saw that.

Now on both production trims for Tesla Semi, they're listed as designed for autonomy.

Again, what we know as of right now, they're not available for customer facing vehicles.

So that question that you asked is, is this a customer facing vehicle? We'll find out soon.

But what is interesting is just three days before this accident in this general area, There was actually a Tesla Semi that was spotted, caught on camera with FSD equipment that was on board and other sensors and such that were being tested for full self-driving.

So we know this is a huge goal of Tesla's.